


Look at All the Things We Have Come From (sometimes it hurts to become them)

by vixleonard



Series: The Sum of Our Parts [4]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Love Triangles, Pre-Poly, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 16:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixleonard/pseuds/vixleonard
Summary: Judging by the look on his face, she’s hurt him worse than HYDRA ever has.Maybe she is the villain in this story.





	Look at All the Things We Have Come From (sometimes it hurts to become them)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who left such nice comments or sent me messages on tumblr wanting to know about this series. When I started it, I was convinced no one would even read it, so if it wasn't for you guys, this wouldn't even exist.
> 
> Unfortunately this series is going to have one more part because it needed this transition chapter.

None of the men will speak to her.

It takes Peggy awhile to realize it, being briefed on the specifics by Colonel Phillips, but soon she realizes everyone is eerily silent. Dugan hasn’t teased her, Gabe hasn’t asked about any new books, Morita hasn’t offered her a cigarette; even worse, Steve and Bucky haven’t even grunted a greeting at her. Howard, who looks as if he’s pondering whether or not tucking and rolling from the truck for his own personal safety is a solid plan, doesn’t seem bothered by it, but it’s already starting to eat at Peggy.

“We’ve got a house to operate out of,” Phillips says as they enter the city, “and you’re more than welcome to stay at it. Unless you two have made other arrangements?”

For the first time Peggy notices Steve wince as Bucky glowers, jaw so tight his teeth may snap, eyes focused determinedly on the floor. 

“I have other business to take care of while I’m here so I’ve got a hotel room,” Howard says, and Peggy knows he’s lying through his teeth but appreciates it nonetheless.

“Carter?”

“Staying with you lot is fine. At least this time it isn’t some muddy field in France.”

“You might miss that field once you feel the mattresses.” Phillips’s face twitches in such a way that on anyone else it would’ve been a smile. “It’s good to have you back with us, Carter.”

Peggy suspects he is the only who feels that way.

* * *

Her room in the large house they’ve rented on the edge of the city is basically a closet under the stairs with a cot shoved inside. There is barely room for Peggy and her duffel, but after a year of sleeping with a baby beside her, waking her every few hours with screams for milk or a nappy change, it is nearly a holiday. Despite her churning emotions, she falls straight to sleep and stays that way for nearly twelve hours, the single longest stretch of sleep she’s had in well over two years.

When she wakes, most of the 107th is awake to varying degrees. Someone has made a truly atrocious pot of coffee that most of the men are drinking, but Peggy bypasses it as she looks for a kettle and teabags. Once the water is on, she locates the telephone and dials Howard’s number back in New York.

“Stark residence, how may I help you?”

“It’s just me, Jarvis.”

“Miss Carter! How was your trip?”

She smiles despite herself. “It was fine. England is just as we left it.”

“I confess I am somewhat jealous you’re in a country where one can receive a proper cup of tea.”

“Is everything all right there? She didn’t give you any trouble, did she?”

“Of course not. Truth be told, I never heard her cry once during the night. I swear the moment she made a noise, Ana was there to calm her.”

Peggy is grateful Jarvis cannot see her flinch. From the moment Grace was born, Peggy questioned whether she was doing the right thing with her daughter, if she was a good enough mother. It was made even worse by the fact that Ana Jarvis, as sweet and helpful as she was, seemed to have the sort of natural maternal instinct Peggy felt like she was missing. Sometimes, when it was the middle of the night and Grace could not be consoled, she wondered if her baby preferred Ana, wished Ana was her mother. Peggy knew it was completely ridiculous, that Grace couldn’t even walk on her own, let alone form complex ideas about swapping mothers, but it never eliminated the wriggle of inadequacy that lived inside her.

“I’m glad to hear she’s well. Make sure to give her a kiss for me.”

“Of course.”

“And tell Ana if she starts to fuss too much, she wants – “

“Her bunny, yes.”

“And if she starts tugging on her ear again, take her straight to the doctor. Her last ear infection – “

“Miss Carter,” Jarvis cuts in gently, “you went over all of this before you left.”

Peggy sighs and looks up to see Steve watching her from across the room. She turns away, the whistle of the kettle starting to reach a fever pitch. “I know. I’m sorry. I must go. Please thank Ana again for me.”

“Stay safe.”

She hangs up the phone and pivots to remove the kettle from the heat. Peggy is startled to realize there are tears on her cheeks, and as she is wiping them away, Steve’s broad shoulders fill the small entryway to the kitchen.

“Are you okay?”

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll brain you with this kettle.”

Steve smiles, and it breaks her heart a little more. “Yes, ma’am.”

Pouring the hot water over the teabag in her empty mug, she murmurs, “I’ve never been away from her, not even for a night. I didn’t think I’d be so – “ She waves a hand.

Steve watches as she adds sugar to her tea before offering, “My ma, she used to work the night shift at the hospital because it paid more. Mrs. Barnes would look after me, make sure I didn’t get into any trouble or catch my death in the middle of the night. Ma used to say that even though she knew I was in good hands, it never made her feel any better about leaving, even if it was to take care of me.”

Wrapping her chilled hand around her mug, Peggy takes him in. She hasn’t seen him since that horrible day in his apartment when she and Bucky had it out for the last time, and somehow she thinks he’s gotten even more attractive. His hair is too long, a darker shade of blond, and he has two days’ growth on his face. He looks less like Captain America and more like the former soldiers Peggy saw walking the streets of New York after the war.

Unable to help herself, she asks, “So are you talking to me now? Did you and the boys all make a pact to avoid me or was it just coincidence?”

He blushes. She knew he would. “The guys didn’t know what to do. We don’t…I mean, it’s easier to…”

“Pretend I never existed? Clearly.”

“No!” Steve takes a step towards her, pauses, steps back again. “Peg, it’s – it’s not like that at all.”

“No?”

“You – “ He sighs, clearly trying to gather his thoughts, but the words explode out of him like he cannot be contained another moment. “You had a kid with Howard! We’d barely left stateside and – “

“And isn’t that what you two wanted, for me to move on, take myself out of the equation? That’s certainly the song and dance James gave me. But that wasn’t it, was it? You two wanted me to be kept in amber, perfectly perched on a bloody pedestal where you left me.”

“That’s not fair.”

Peggy slams down her mug, the hot tea splashing her hand. “Why don’t you leave me alone, Steve? You’re really fucking good at it.”

Judging by the look on his face, she’s hurt him worse than HYDRA ever has.

Maybe she is the villain in this story.

* * *

“They’re going to murder me,” Howard whispers to her when she meets him at the curb where his taxi left him.

“No one is going to murder you.”

“Of the two of us, who knows what it looks like when a pissed-off husband is coming at you?”

“First off, Bucky asked me for a divorce almost two years ago. He hardly gets a say in how I spend my time. Second, in case you’ve forgotten, none of this would be an issue if you hadn’t taken it upon yourself to sign Grace’s birth certificate. Third, we are not and have never been anything more than friends so you have nothing to worry about when it comes to them.”

“I’m still worried, Peg. I’m more of a lover than a fighter.”

She rolls her eyes. “Do you want me to promise to beat up Bucky if he’s mean to you?”

“Sorta,” he says as she opens the door to find the 107th assembled around a table with Colonel Phillips waiting to fully debrief them.

“Nice of you to join us, Stark,” Phillips barks.

“You know me, Colonel. I never quite got that military timing down. Fellas,” he says, taking a seat as far from the soldiers as possible. 

Peggy rolls her eyes. It’s just like Howard to found an intelligence agency but be too afraid of actual confrontation.

“Now that you’re here, let’s get started.” Phillips gestures to the blueprint stretching across the table. “This is our target. It’s the house of Lionel Chambers, some hotshot over here.”

“He’s a lord,” Peggy corrects. When the men all look to her, she adds, “I went to primary school with his daughter.”

“Well, Lord Lionel here married a German woman after the war named Sofia Muller. You two remember that name?”

Peggy nods as Howard says, “She worked with Erskine when he was still in Germany. He was upset Peg didn’t extract her too.”

“The Lady Chambers, as she’s known now, has decided to take what she learned from Erskine and sell it to the highest bidder. And right now the highest bidder is the Soviets. Now according to our source, Lady Chambers is having some sort of tea party for high society women. That’s where you come in, Carter.”

“You want me to steal her work product? That won’t be an issue. We’ve done that a dozen times. But what about the invitation?”

Phillips frowns. “That’s getting to be a little trickier. You know anyone who might be able to get you one? Any old friends?”

Peggy’s stomach drops. As if this trip wasn’t already a complete and total disaster. “I might. When’s the tea?”

“Two days.”

Peggy nods, her thoughts swirling. “You’ll be providing support if it goes sideways then?”

Dugan cracks a smile. “For some reason he doesn’t think we’re tea party ready.”

“I think you’d look terrific in a Sunday bonnet.”

Most of the men chuckle at the image. Peggy notices Steve keeps his eyes on the blueprints. Bucky still only looks at the floor.

For the first time Peggy thinks she shouldn’t have come here.

* * *

The dress Peggy wears out of the store where she purchased it is dreadfully uncomfortable. It’s too tight around her chest and pinches at the waist, but it is precisely the sort of dress her mother always wished she wear when she was younger. It is a demure navy blue coupled with a string of costume pearls and appropriate heels also purchased at the shop, and Peggy looks like the woman she might’ve been had she wed Fred all those lifetimes ago.

“Miss Margaret!” Jasper the butler says with genuine happiness, and Peggy thinks it is the warmest greeting she’s likely to get on this continent. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hello, Jasper. Is my mother in?”

“Of course. She’s in the parlor.”

Her mother is just as she was the last time Peggy saw her for Dernier’s wedding. She is seated in the parlor reading an Agatha Christie novel, dressed to the nines with perfect hair and a full face of make-up. When she sees Peggy, her calm veneer cracks for only a moment, and Peggy sees the surprise and disappointment all twisted together.

“Margaret. What are you doing here?”

“I’m in the city for work and I thought I’d come see you. It’s been – “

“Nearly four years,” Amanda Carter cuts in, voice as sharp as a blade. “You brought your temporary husband with you. Have you settled all that unpleasantness yet?”

Peggy tries to sit as gracefully as possible on the couch she’s certain has been in the house since the War of the Roses. “The paperwork is still being processed.”

Marking her page in her novel, Amanda sighs. “Your stepfather and I have told everyone he died. It’s bad enough to have a daughter who breaks an engagement but one who weds an American and divorces him? We don’t need that sort of scandal.”

Peggy is screaming inside. “Of course.”

“Did you bring the child with you? Am I ever to see my granddaughter?”

“She’s with – her nanny back in the States.”

“A nanny? Well at least you have the good sense to see she’s being properly tended to while you’re…doing whatever it is you do. Did you at least bring a photograph?”

Peggy opens her handbag and removes a copy of the portrait she had done for Grace’s first birthday. Her little girl is wearing a frothy concoction of lace purchased by Howard in France, her dark hair gathered into a tiny ponytail held in place by a white ribbon. She is chubby cheeked and smiling, arms reaching for Peggy, who was hidden behind the camera and pulling faces to make her laugh.

Amanda is quiet for a long beat before offering, “She looks a bit like Michael.”

Peggy squeezes her nails into her palms to keep from crying. “She’s a lot like him in temperament. She doesn’t sleep very well.”

“Oh, that she gets from you. You terrorized the poor night nurse. We went through three of them before you were even a year old. She has his eyes.”

“Harrison’s?”

“The soldier’s.” Amanda extends the photo back to her. “At least he was handsome and gave you a beautiful daughter.”

Trying to ignore the flare of pain in her heart, Peggy manages, “You can keep it if you want.”

Amanda nods, setting the photograph aside. Folding her hands on her lap, she sighs. “So tell me, Margaret, what do you want? Is it money? Because we were very clear we wouldn’t – “

“No, Mother, I have my own money. I’m here because I need to attend Lady Chambers’s tea party and I hoped you would be able to help me.”

“Am I allowed to ask why you’ve traveled thousands of miles for a tea party you aren’t invited to or am I to just make this happen?”

“All I can tell you is I would not be here if it wasn’t important.”

Amanda shakes her head with a huff. “You know, Margaret, we only wanted the very best for you. I thought after Michael…you’d get all of this out of your system. You’d come back, be yourself again.”

“This is who I am. That person before was just…doing whatever everyone else wanted.”

“It isn’t too late to come home, you know. You could bring the baby. You’re still young enough to start again. There’s no need to be in New York alone with a child doing god knows whatever it is you do.”

“I just…need an invitation.”

Amanda gets to her feet, disappearing through the doorway towards the office. For a moment Peggy wonders if she’ll return, but then her mother reappears with an embossed invitation. Peggy rises, surprised that she’s given it over with so little fight.

“She’s a dreadful woman,” Amanda declares, “and I wouldn’t have gone anyway. Just make certain you don’t do anything to embarrass me. When you’re here, everything you do reflects on this family.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Amanda clucks her tongue, brushing something off of Peggy’s shoulder. “I’d say I hope your daughter gives you as much trouble as you’ve given me, but I think you’d enjoy that. So instead I’ll say I hope your daughter is everything I ever wanted you to be.”

Peggy had to give her mother credit: as far as curses went, no one had anything on Amanda Carter.

* * *

“You look like a wildflower bouquet.”

Peggy glares at Dugan as Howard fits her with the listening device. The afternoon tea outfit recommended by her mother’s favorite shop girl is truly Peggy’s nightmare. A shade of pink with a monstrous rose print, the tulle beneath the large skirt itches to high heaven. When paired with gloves and a hat, she looks like the society girl she was raised to be, and just like when she was a child, she has the urge to rip everything off and stomp on it.

“Just because I’m wearing gloves does not mean I won’t break your nose.”

Gabe, perched on the edge of a table and looking over the blueprints with Steve, chimes in, “I’ve never been to a tea party but I’m pretty sure that’s not in the etiquette books.”

“I hate you all.”

Howard hands her a necklace with microphone. “Say something into that to make sure it’s working.”

Fastening the pendant around her neck, she leans over and whispers, “Fuck off, Howard.”

He flashes her a grin. “Perfect!”

Phillips emerges from a room, his face set with purpose. “All right, we all ready? Jones, you’ll be the driver. Stark will be monitoring the surveillance. Dugan, Rogers, Barnes, and Morita, you’ll be backup if we need it. The rest of you are going to stay here, make sure everything’s ready for the transfer back to the States. You ready for this, Carter?”

Peggy tucks her gun into her handbag. “Of course.”

* * *

Two things occur to Peggy as she makes the rounds of the party. The first is that she’d forgotten how quickly gossip spreads in London, particularly in her mother’s circle of friends. The second is that Howard, Gabe, Dugan, Morita, Steve, and Bucky are hearing everything being said to her.

After the third time someone offers their condolences for her dead husband, Peggy murmurs towards her pendant, “Please tell James I didn’t tell anyone he’s dead. That was all my mother.”

It startles her to hear Bucky’s voice in her ear, the first words he’s spoken to her since she arrived. “Wishful thinking, I’m sure.”

She sees Sissy Mercer only a half-second before she is on her. Peggy hasn’t seen the daughter of her mother’s best friend since before the war, and she’d despised her then. Somehow since the war, Sissy has lost even more weight and become even more blonde, and her voice is somehow even more grating.

“Oh, Peggy, it is you!” Sissy air kisses both of her cheeks. “I would’ve bet the entire family fortune my eyes were playing tricks on me. How is it possible Peggy Carter is back and I didn’t know about it?” Sissy covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Do you still go by Carter or your husband’s name?”

“Still Carter.”

Dropping her voice to a faux-whisper, Sissy says, “Mother told me the whole sordid story about your situation. The truth, I mean, not what Amanda’s been telling everyone. I cannot believe your husband left you while you were pregnant. What a cad! Thank goodness your friend intervened so you weren’t out on the street like some fallen woman. I could not believe it when my mother told me. What sort of man does that?”

There is a deafening silence in her earpiece. “Sissy – “

“If it had been me, I probably would’ve given the poor thing to the nuns, moved back here, and pretended none of it ever happened. You’ve always been a strong one though, Peg.” Her smile became almost predatory. “Have you met Fred’s wife yet? She’s nowhere near as pretty as you, but she’s given him a baby every year they’ve been married. Can you imagine?”

Peggy takes out her earpiece and leaves the necklace in a vase.

* * *

After, Peggy only remembers it in snippets.

Sofia Muller’s laboratory is in a converted basement. The security measures to keep someone out are easy enough to bypass with Howard’s tech, and the plan is for Peggy to escape with the information about Project Rebirth through a window. It isn’t the most glamorous plan, but she’s done worse.

She has just passed the information through the small window to an awaiting Dugan when the other man enters.

Peggy barely has time to turn towards him before the bullet enters her stomach. It is far worse than the pain from the bullets she took in her shoulder, but her adrenaline is pumping far harder. She hears Dugan yell something outside as she throws herself at the gunman.

The last thing she remembers before the world goes dark is Steve coming through the basement door, Bucky watching his six.

* * *

When she wakes up, foggy headed and a sharp ache in her gut, her wrists are tied to the bed. Peggy jerks awake, already fighting the restraints, unable to remember what happened in the basement, and it takes her a moment to realize Bucky is pushing her shoulders back to the bed, saying her name and telling her to calm down.

“Where am I? What’s going on?”

“You’re in New York. Phillips had a military transport bring you back once you were stable. The nurses had to restrain you because you kept pulling out your IVs when you woke up.” Bucky pulls his hands away from her shoulders, reaching for a cup on the side table. When he brings the straw to her lips, Peggy doesn’t hesitate, grateful for the water wetting her cotton dry mouth and throat. “If you promise not to pull anything out, I’ll take them off.”

Already exhausted, Peggy nods. She watches as Bucky carefully uncuffs the restraints, rubbing at her wrists to get the blood flowing again. It is the first time he’s touched her since the night his father died, and Peggy doesn’t want him to stop.

“Why are you here?”

The corner of his mouth twitches in almost a smile. “You never signed the papers, remember? I pulled the husband card.”

“I burned them.”

This time he does smile. “Yeah, you’re a drama queen like that.”

Peggy tries to adjust herself in her bed, winces with pain, and then gives up, melting into her pillow. “You never sent them again.”

He touches her hand, the back of which is heavily taped to keep an IV in place. “It killed me to send them the first time.”

They sit in silence for long minutes, Peggy savoring the feel of his hand on hers, before she asks, “How long have I been in here? When was the mission?”

The moment his face clouds over, Peggy knows it’s bad. “Two weeks. There was a week in London before they sent you here. You lost your spleen, had some hemorrhaging. They thought they lost you at one point. You’d lost so much blood…”

“You came back with me?”

“Me, Steve, Howard, Phillips, a whole medical team. The SSR was furious, but Phillips pulled every trump card and favor he had. Plus you got the intel so once they knew that, they couldn’t be too upset the Soviets aren’t going to have the means to make a whole army of Steves.”

Her head is swimming, something in her IV now making her feel very warm and sleepy. But still she manages, “Grace?”

“She’s still with the Jarvises. Howard and Steve are there now. I sent them home to shower and eat something before they come back. They’ll be upset they missed you waking up.”

As she drifts back to sleep, she orders in a slur, “Don’t hit Howard.”

* * *

The doctor calls her “Mrs. Barnes” and neither she nor Bucky correct him. Peggy decides she will not attempt to figure out what that means until she is no longer bedbound.

She demands to be taken off the intravenous painkillers, which the doctor, nurses, and Bucky all try to talk her out of but Peggy insists she can handle it. This is a mistake, especially coupled with her demand to be allowed to try to walk, and she ends up back on the IV before the day is out.

“I know you’re a fighter, Pegs, but you don’t have to fight the doctors,” Bucky says as she waits for the sweet release of morphine.

Peggy Carter is not a good patient, and she doesn’t plan on starting to be one now.

* * *

The next time she wakes up, it is the following day and both Steve and Howard have joined Bucky at her bedside. My boys, she thinks and it isn’t until all three of them glance at each other that she realizes she must’ve said it aloud.

His fear of her former lovers apparently forgotten, Howard is the one who moves first per usual. He leans over, giving her the most careful hug of her life, before declaring, “You gave us one hell of a scare. I thought I was down a best friend and a business partner.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Jarvis insisted I tell you that he’s set up your room exactly the way you like it and will make you that terrible tea you like night and day until you’re recovered.”

“What are you talking about? Why would I go to your house? What happened to my house?”

“Peg, you live alone in a third floor walk-up with a kid that just started walking. You got to heal, you need help.”

“Grace is walking? When?”

Steve clears his throat. “Um, two – two days ago? We were playing and she kept trying, so Buck and I, we thought we’d try what we did with Evie when we taught her. I held her hands and then Buck went across the room with her bunny and then she – you know – walked.”

Peggy looks at the two of them, both somewhat sheepish, and she wonders if the confusion she feels is because of the morphine or the alternate universe she’s now entered. “You taught my daughter to walk without me?”

She hates the way the two of them can look at each other and have an entire conversation without saying a word. Bucky barely manages to get, “Well – “ out of his mouth before she cuts in, “So I can’t go back to my apartment, I’m apparently an invalid staying with Howard, and my daughter has learned to walk. Anything else I’ve missed while I was out? Have one of you married Angie? Is Jack Thompson bringing me flowers?”

All of them are just staring at her, uncertain what to do, when Howard says, “You know, if you hadn’t ditched your ear piece and microphone, we could’ve prevented this.”

Even bedridden and drugged, Peggy still manages to hit him with her water cup.

* * *

“You don’t have to stay,” she tells Bucky and Steve the second time after the nurse tries to shimmy them out. She suspects if they weren’t Captain America and his best pal, the nurse would’ve forced them out hours earlier, but the Brooklyn boys made good always seemed able to charm the ladies of the hospital.

“We’ll go when you’re asleep.”

Peggy looks at Steve, so gentle with his kind smile, and she feels a lump rise in her throat. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“For what?”

“What I said in London about you leaving. I was just…” She closes her eyes, the tears stinging hot against her cheeks. “I was so angry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” She looks at both of them, the serious looks on their handsome faces, and says, “You shouldn’t have left. Either of you. You should’ve stayed and we should’ve talked. We all should have stopped being so bloody stupid.”

Bucky reaches for her right hand, squeezing it tight. “We don’t need to talk about this right now.”

“But we do because I didn’t – I didn’t do what you think I did.”

Steve takes her left hand, cradling it between his own large hands. “We know. Howard told us.”

“Everything?”

Steve nods, and Peggy lets her eyes close again.

She falls asleep with both of them still holding her hands.

* * *

When they finally move her from the intensive care unit to a regular room, Peggy wakes one morning to the excited squealing of her daughter. Even through her narcotic-aided sleep, Peggy recognizes Grace’s jabber and she blinks awake to see Grace in Steve’s arms, her dark hair in pigtail tuffs, a yellow sundress Peggy knows she never bought bright against the institutional white of her room. Bucky trails them with a smile, and Peggy fights against the ache in her stomach to sit upright.

“Hello, darling. Oh, I’ve missed you.”

“Mum, mum, mum!” Grace chants, squirming every direction to escape Steve’s hold and reach her. 

“Remember, Mommy has a booboo so we have to be gentle,” Steve says, and Peggy would’ve laughed at this mountain of a man saying “booboo” if she wasn’t so bloody happy to see her daughter after over a month apart.

Peggy never doubted Ana and Jarvis would take good care of Grace. It doesn’t surprise her at all that Grace’s hair ribbons match her dress, which match her ruffled socks, which match the cover over her nappy. It isn’t surprising Grace is happy and seems to have learned a handful of new words – among them: cup, baby, ouch, tea, and tickle – as well as walking. No, what surprises her is the ease with which she calls for “Eve” and “Uck,” already adding them to her patchwork quilt of family that includes Mum, “Ister,” Ana, and “Ower.”

“I was afraid she’d forgotten me,” Peggy confesses as Grace snoozes against her shoulder, having tired herself out trying to gnaw the IV tubing, leap off the bed into Steve’s waiting arms, and exploring every square inch of the room on unsteady legs. 

“Ana has a picture of you in her room,” Steve says, “and she goes around the house asking for you.”

Peggy presses a kiss to her sweaty forehead, inhaling the sweet scent of her. So often when Grace was fighting sleep, Peggy brought her into her bed, falling asleep with her little body against hers. She doesn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened had the surgery in London been unable to save her.

“Howard could tell you if you want to know,” Peggy blurts out, stroking Grace’s back. “He said he could test her blood, see which type of the serum – “

“We don’t need to talk about that now,” Steve cuts in.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, which tells Peggy everything.

* * *

Six weeks after being shot in Sofia Muller’s basement, Peggy is discharged from the hospital less one spleen, stitches still holding her middle together, and one hell of a mess awaiting her at the Stark mansion.

Jarvis and Steve pick her up, Jarvis the driver, Steve there in case she collapses but pretending that is not the case. Peggy grumbles about having to use the wheelchair to leave and grumbles even more when both men rush to help her into the car, but her stamina is still recovering. She wants to be as energetic as possible for Grace, and so she naps the entire drive out to the Hamptons.

Ana has made every dish Peggy has ever expressed the slightest approval of, the entire dining room table overtaken with dishes. Howard has decorated the place with balloons and banners, both of which have fascinated Grace far more than her mother’s arrival. To Peggy’s surprise, both Angie and Evie are there, Angie popping open a bottle of champagne as Peggy manages to make it through the door. 

She’s exhausted within the first hour, but Peggy puts on a brave face. She sips champagne with Angie, lets Evie dote over Grace, thanks Ana profusely while Jarvis rushes around to bring her whatever she wants. The day is full of happiness and relief, and Peggy tries not to focus on all the stress awaiting her once she is better.

Steve is carrying a sleeping Evie upstairs to one of the guest rooms when Peggy lays a hand on Bucky’s forearm. He turns those blue eyes on her, the ones her own mother swears Grace has, and Peggy feels her heart skip a beat in a way it hasn’t since the beginning of their relationship.

“Would you help me into the bath? I’m desperate for one.”

For all the difficulties that come with having your pseudo-ex-husband back in your life, there are several advantages. The first is that Bucky knows exactly how she likes her bath, having filled the tub for her countless times. The second is when she gives him her back, he draws down the zipper of her dress without a moment’s hesitation. She isn’t sure if it’s muscle memory or deliberate, the way his lips find the scars from her first bullet wounds, but Peggy leans back into it, closing her eyes as Bucky takes her weight against him.

“Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that again, you got me, Carter?” he murmurs roughly against her ear, his breath hot against her skin.

“Don’t ever fucking leave me again, you got me, Barnes?” 

He unhooks her bra, sliding the material down her arms as the steam from the bath starts to fill the room. “I got you, Carter. I’ve always got you.”

His kiss still tastes the same, still feels the same, and Peggy wonders if there’s still hope for them after all.

* * *

Steve comes to her room after her bath, Bucky having helped her into her pajamas and into her bed. He is still lying beside her when Steve peeks his head inside. He hesitates for a moment, obviously unsure, before Peggy says, “In or out, Rogers.”

He comes in.

She pats the bed on the side not currently occupied by Bucky, and Steve perches there, uncertain. Peggy rolls her eyes, tugging at his shoulder, and he takes the hint, toeing off his shoes and stretching out beside her. Between the two of them, it is ungodly warm, but Peggy doesn’t care. They’re here.

“You picked each other.” Peggy sighs. “I know you didn’t want to fight over me or make me choose, but you chose each other. And then I chose Grace.”

“You should’ve told us.”

She expected it from Bucky but not Steve, whose handsome face is frowning. They’ve bickered about things in the past, but this is the first time Peggy thinks they are about to have a true argument.

“And said what, one of you got me pregnant but I don’t know which one? Please come back to the country so we can figure it all out? I didn’t even know if you’d answer a letter, and I didn’t want you to reject her too.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“Not fair but honest,” Bucky finally speaks up. He ghosts his fingers across her stomach. “I wouldn’t have read it. I couldn’t have. It was hard enough to leave, Steve, and you know that.”

They’re all quiet again, filling the massive bed in Howard’s guest room, when Steve announces, voice full of the same surety he uses when he’s Captain America, “She’s my daughter. Whether she’s got my blood or not, she’s mine, and I’m not leaving.”

“Me either.”

Peggy exhales a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. As she drifts off to sleep, Bucky on one side of her, Steve on the other, Peggy wonders how they’ll possibly navigate what comes next.


End file.
